Share this with

Ireland centre Luke Fitzgerald has been ruled out of Saturday’s Test against New Zealand in Wellington with an ankle injury.

The Ireland management team had been confident the 20-year-old, who missed the first two days of training, would be fit in time for Thursday’s session, but he has now failed a fitness test.

“The injury didn’t respond as quickly to treatment as our medical team had predicted,” team manager Joey Miles said. “However, we’re still reasonably optimistic Luke will be available for the Test in Australia.”

Miles added: “Paddy Wallace has a pedigree of playing inside centre with his club Ulster. We knew there was an outside possibility of this happening, so Paddy has trained most of the week in that position.”